Cingular - Sure Laugh at My Misery
Written: Oct 26 '01
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Pros: Cheap
Cons: Horrible Customer Support, Rude people, Got the run around constantly
The Bottom Line: Read the Review
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| Destinys-Child's Full Review: General Reviews of Cingular Wireless Customer Serv... |
Please be aware that this Epinion is long, but hopefully you find my problems entertaining. I hope that my misery brings a little joy into your life
Being a customer of Cell One (now Cingular) has taught me a valuable lesson. If they offer the cheapest service don’t always expect the best service in return.
I will admit I went to Cell One simply because they had the cheapest plan with the options I wanted. When I signed up I got 175 minutes, free nights and weekends and a Nokia phone for $24.99 a month (plus $49.99 for the phone). This was about a year and a half ago and I have learned that since then they do not offer my plan any more. The service itself worked fine, reception in my area was good.
Here’s a Story, of a man named Brady…. err Destiny sorry; flashback
At first everything was fine, the service worked with very little downtime (only once was I unable to use the phone) and the phone worked like it was supposed to. About a month into my service my phones battery seemed to be dying in only a couple of days (when I first got the phone it would last a week if I left it on 24/7), so I brought it to my local store to find out what was going on. It turns out that my car charger was responsible to killing the life of my battery. Apparently if you leave a car phone hooked up to the charger for more than 15 minutes at a time you wear out the battery. The person I talked to in the store told me that because the phone was under warranty he would give me a new battery for free, but if I did it again then I would have to pay for it. I asked him why no one explained to me that I couldn’t leave my phone on the charger for long periods of time, and he told me he thought everyone knew that. Well the car charger they sold me is one of those hands free speaker, mic, charger consoles (simply hit the send/receive button and you can talk without holding the phone). You plug the unit into your car charger and it charges your phone while you are talking or simply driving. Seems inconvenient to me that you can’t leave the phone in the holder and you have to take it out in order to avoid killing the battery. He told me all phone car chargers do this and there is nothing that can be done about it, I have since learned that this is a lie and there are car chargers that do not kill the battery life.
Months went by without a problem and I continued to use the phone with no problems. Along comes June 2001, and my phone all of a sudden stops working. What was happening is I would make a phone call and I would get disconnected within a few seconds of sending the call. My phone showed a fully charged battery so I know it wasn’t that. I got home and called tech support and was told that a tower in my area was having problems and it should be resolved shortly. I accepted this and went on with life. Two days later my phone is still doing the same thing so I called yet again. This time I’m told that my phone is the culprit and I should go to the local store and have it looked at. When I got to the store the person took my phone in back and came back 10 minutes later explaining that they would need to keep the phone and I would have it back the next day.
The next day I went to get my phone and the person working made a call to show me that it was indeed functioning. He told me it was a new phone, but I am almost positive that it wasn’t (it had a couple of scratches on it). He charged me $39.99 for the new phone and I left somewhat perturbed. Well it worked till the next day anyway. The next day when I went to use it and the battery was dead. At first I thought it was because I hadn’t noticed it wasn’t charged when I got it back, but after charging it overnight on my home charger the battery only lasted about an hour before it was dead. Unfortunately because of my job I don’t have time to keep running to the store every day so I was forced to use a friends phone and went back to the store a couple of days later.
I was told yet again that it was a bad battery and it needed to be replaced. I asked if he was sure and he said yes, gave me a new one, called my number and it worked. Of course, I explained that I wouldn’t know if it was working until an hour or so later when I would see if the battery was dead or not. Needless to say it died a little while after I got home.
Ahhh Tech Support
All of this happened 13 months into my service, and 4 days since I supposedly got the new phone. I called up tech support, waited about 20 minutes and talked with a rep who told me that my phone needs to be replaced. I asked why the people at the store had yet to offer me a replacement and he didn’t know. I was told that because it was beyond the one year warranty that I wound need to buy a new phone and one could be provided for $149.99, but because I was a customer I could upgrade for only $49.99. Now this had me a bit puzzled because according to the guy I left my phone with he had given me a brand new phone and along with it a new warranty. The person on the phone said he had no record of a new phone being issued to me. I explained that I had the slip from the store and it clearly stated the sale of a phone only a few weeks before. She told me that according to my records I have never purchased a new phone. Now I am getting a bit upset, I repeated myself and told her I had a slip from the store saying I had purchased a new phone. She told me I would have to mail the original sales receipt to Cingular for them to look over and until then nothing could be done. I told her fine, but please discontinue my service until this is resolved, I don’t want to pay for service I can’t use, and in fact I want to be credited for the past month since I have not had a phone that didn’t work. “I’m sorry we can’t do that”, apparently because I had made 3 calls on the phone (probably the ones the store made to test my phone) I had to pay for the month since there was usage. This was bull and I argued the point only to be shot down again and again by this person. I asked to speak to a supervisor and guess what! There were none working right at the moment! Gee, let me recover from my heart attack.
I figured screw it for now and told her to just make sure my service was suspended so I could send in my receipt. She said no problem and would there be anything else. Nope, she hung up I got mad. Wow am I going to have an ulcer by the time I am 35 or what.
Waiting Waiting Waiting
The next day I mailed off the receipt (after making a copy for myself) along with a letter explaining the situation and what I would like done. Then I sat back and waited for a response or the second coming of Christ whichever happened first (odds were about even).
26 Days Later, Wed. 5:34pm, Dark and Stormy Night
I made a call to Cingular today; no one knew what I was talking about when I asked for the status of my account. Apparently it was still on and activated and no one had shut it down. Arguments ensued and I got it taken care of after an hour and 20 minutes on the phone. Apparently no one has any info on my letter I sent. After much insisting I was told a supervisor would call me within an hour.
Same Day, Wed. 7:12pm, Still a Dark and Stormy Night
I never got a call from Cingular, big surprise. I made another call and after another 20-minute wait I was told that they are quite busy and someone would get back to me by tomorrow this time. I argued that I had already been promised a call back 20 minutes ago and was told how busy they are, how much they care, how much they can kiss my as… sorry. I told her I really needed to get this resolved and she stuck me on hold for another 15 minutes.
When she got back she had Elisha a “Customer Relations Specialist” (lol). She asked what was happening and I had to retell my story all over again. After I was done she simply said, “So you are refusing to pay your bill?”, to which I replied yes because I don’t think I should have to pay for service when I didn’t have a phone that worked. She told me “Fine your account will be turned over to our collections office and they will handle it.” Whaaa, I tried to explain it but she refused to listen. What happened to the “customer relations specialist”? I ended up hanging up on her and I waited till the next night to see if I got any sort of call.
Next Day, Thurs. 6:58pm, Dark (it is night you know) and Muggy
I made my call to Cingular today. Least they had me on record requesting a call from a supervisor. Unfortunately they don’t know what happened.
I told them screw this I want to cancel my account. She told me to hold on while she got a supervisor (LOL all that and all I had to do was threaten to cancel). Finally I was talking to a supervisor and I went through the whole story all over again. He agreed that because I got a new phone it was under warranty and that he would have a new one issued to me. As for the previous months bill when I couldn’t use the phone I would have to talk to billing about that since he was only tech support.
Meanwhile over at billing our hero had trouble waiting for him
Was transferred over to billing in a surprisingly short period of time. I went over my tale yet again and she asked me if she fixed the bill would I consider signing up again, I told her no I was already with another company and she told me she couldn’t help me and the bill needed to be paid.
That’s not really how the conversation went but that’s it in a nutshell.
I hung up with her and called back, this time I told the person that I might consider signing back up if/when the bill issue was resolved. She happily took care of the bill and asked if I wanted to re-sign up and I told her I would wait to see if I got another bill or not.
So if you want to stay with them they will help, if not than you are screwed.
Just leave me ALONE!!!
Two days after canceling I get a call from Andrew who is extremely upset that I left the cult. He wants to know if there is anything he can do to make it right. I told him the story (again) and he told me if I came back he would clear my account, give me a brand new Internet Phone, 50 more minutes a month and internet access free. I told him it sounds good send me the info in the mail, but he couldn’t do that he needed to sign me up right now or no deal. After pushing for more info I found out the internet would only last for a month (trial thing) and then it would cost me per month to use it. The phone I would have gotten was only $10.00 more than the one I would have gotten. So the only thing he really offered me was 50 more minutes a month.
I told him no thanks and to stop calling me.
That’s is my story, hope it wasn’t too boring. All in all Cingular isn’t bad if you never have to deal with tech support.
Recommended:
No
Amount Paid (US$): 24.99
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Epinions.com ID:
Destinys-Child
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 - Top 500 |
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Location: Sagamore Beach Ma.
Reviews written: 128
Trusted by: 87 members
About Me:
A fool and his money were lucky to be together in the first place.
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